He’d followed me here.
Now he was taking me home.
We let the night air wrap around us. It promised to keep our secret. Everything we’d gone through in the sky. Everything yet to come.
Tomorrow, we’d climb the vine and break my curse. Tonight, I just wanted to relive our story. Because it didn’t just have a happy ending—it was endless.
Chapter 46
Marin
Journeys always seemed fasteron the way down, as if home was pulling you closer. But that didn’t make it any easier. I’d forgotten the sound of the roaring wind and the dizzying expanse of nothing beneath our feet.
My muscles ached, my fingers trembling from the strain of gripping the vine. And then there was my curse. A constant companion, ravenous for the salt of the sea while mocking the air that thickened like foam in my lungs.
Nothing about this hunt had been simple. And the end was taking its toll. Every word was a struggle. Every breath a hope for one more.
“I’m never climbing… anything ever again.” I panted, lowering my shaking body to the next handhold. “Not a mountain, not a hill, even stairs are in question.”
Gavin let out a dry laugh, peering up at me from a branch a few feet below. “Agreed. I’ll have to design some sort of pulley system for the manor. The stairs will just be for show.”
“I don’t even want to look at them.” I paused to blink away the woozy blur in my vision and suck in a shallow breath. “A curse on anything elevated. If it’s not sea level… I’m out.”
I dropped onto the branch where Gavin waited and sank against him, letting him take my weight. We’d reached thesecond day of climbing, and below us, the ground was finally visible, just a hazy patchwork of color, a soft blend of land and sea.
His palm cupped the back of my head, and his body shifted to block the worst of the wind. “Sounds good to me. Let’s just sit. Drink wine. Eat hot food that hasn’t been sitting at the bottom of our packs, and then we’ll sleep. Give that giant a run for his money.”
I smiled faintly, wrapping my arms around Gavin’s waist to soak in his warmth. “Everyone will have to…” A thin, wheezy breath escaped my lips. “…sneak past us. Wake the hunters. Feel our wrath.”
Gavin went quiet for a moment too long, like my joke had left him winded and not the other way around. When he finally spoke, his voice was strangely hollow.
“It’ll be epic. A legend for the ages.”
“They’ll whisper… our names in terror.”
“As they should.” Gavin’s fingers tightened the cord keeping my hair out of my face, then he squeezed my shoulders. Concern leached into his voice. “We have to keep moving. I know you’re tired. But—”
“The dreaded curse of Saltless Breath waits for no one.” My lips flattened into a snarl. “Add bargaining with a sea queen… to my list of things… never to do again.”
“We’re almost there. I think I can see the manor.”
“You mean that speck of lint below us? Sure. It’s practically within reach.” I matched his tone with sarcasm and untangled my arms from around his waist to cross them over my chest. “After you… partner.”
Gavin tugged on my harness to check its stability. That hollowness in his voice seemed to have found a way into hiseyes. His fingers flexed around our climbing rope before he continued down the vine. I followed in his wake, grumpy and sore. Solid ground was the only thing that could change my tune, and it was still a long way off.
I should’ve been grateful, though. I had the shard, and the sea was close. But with every section lower, I realized the end of this journey meant leaving Gavin behind. He could follow me to the sky, but not beneath the waves.
We hadn’t talked about it. Maybe he was as reluctant to mention it as I was, or maybe he’d been wearing the cloak of denial I’d wrapped around myself since I first stepped onto the vine. But the denial would end on that beach, and I would have to say goodbye.
For how long, I had no idea. A day? A week? Maybe longer. The sea queen’s bargain didn’t say. And I hadn’t thought to ask. The finer details didn’t matter so much when the odds were stacked against you. But now those odds had tipped in our favor, and for the first time, we had to face the reality of letting go.
That was a weight Gavin could never take from me, and it got heavier by the hour.
So did my pack. My boots. The literal clothes on my back. Everything extra hurt. But the speck of lint that was the manor grew until, finally, I could make out the windows and the balcony overlooking the sea.
I let go of the vine, my knees buckling as my boots hit the dirt. Gavin caught me around the waist, both of us swaying unsteadily as we fought to stay upright.
“We made it,” I gasped, squeezing Gavin’s arm as a signal to let me slide to the ground. My backside planted in the grass, my fingers sinking into the soil. I wanted to root into the earthand stay right here for eternity.
